[Guest]

Hi



after implementing all software tweaks to speed LR up, I have concluded that I need some new hardware. My current system is a Q8200, 4GB Ram, ATI 3600, vista 32 bit. My board does NOT take more than those 4GB, thus upgradeing RAM alone is not possible.



My complaint is that in the develop module it takes about 5-10 sec. to load an image. In PS CS5 the panorama stiching dialogue occasionally crashes with an error messages that there is insuficient RAM.



My questions are:



1. Can I speed up the LR devleop module simply by buying a SSD and putting the ACR-Cache on that disk or do I need more RAM/CPU power?



2.If an SSD doesnt fix my problems, would it be sufficient to upgrade my CPU to i5 2500, the RAM to 8GB and windows 7 (64 bit) or would I need the SSD in addition to that new hardware, to gain anything over my current system?



3. In other words: Does lightroom gain more speed from a better CPU and Ram or from a faster disk? At this point I cant afford both.



Thanks for your help.

[miro]

Since I’m only photoshop user I’ll cover the photoshop issues only.



A good starting point is adobe photoshop site. http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404439.html

You can browse the site for other similar articles.

The essence is

File size capability for Photoshop CS5 and CS4:

• PSD files: 2 GB

• TIFF files: 4 GB

This table lists the amount of RAM available to Photoshop with the different versions of Windows:

Photoshop Version Windows Version Maximum amount of RAM that Photoshop can use

32-bit 32-bit 1.7 GB

32-bit 64-bit 3.2 GB

64-bit 64-bit as much RAM as you can fit into your computer



And something that adobe doesn’t tell you. The windows 32bit application can address maxium 2GB address space. Adobe photoshop doesn’t use the windows default virtual memory manager. They implemented their own way to mange huge data via scratch file. This solution increase the overall performance while make system more fragile in case of wrong setup photoshop performance preferences e.g. crashes, error etc.



I think that you have nice system that must be responsive even with huge 20+Mpixel files.

If you want to unlash the power of your system you have to go to 64bit OS and use the 64bits version of photoshop CS5. Photoshop CS5 distributions includes both.

I don’t understand why you cannot upgrade your RAM. I assume that you have 4x1GBat you LGA775 mobo. I’d suggest you to replace the two DIMMs with 2x4GB. It will make your system 10GB – 2x1gb + 2x4gb



Success,

Miro

[Guest]

[quote name='miro' timestamp='1295439453' post='5639']



I don’t understand why you cannot upgrade your RAM. I assume that you have 4x1GBat you LGA775 mobo. I’d suggest you to replace the two DIMMs with 2x4GB. It will make your system 10GB – 2x1gb + 2x4gb



Success,

Miro

[/quote]

Thanks for you tips. I have a ready-made pc. And the specifications in the manual say it can only take a mximum of 4gb (there are only two ram slots anyway)

[wim]

Yep, not all PCs will take more memory.



When I ran into trouble processing images, essentially when I got a 5D II with its 20+ MB Raw files, I switched to an i7 system with a few terabytes, 12 GB of Ram, etc. My old machine, with 4 GB of RAM and Vista 32 bit, took two minutes to process a relative simple filter on a photograph taken with the 5D II, and this went down to a few seconds or less on the new one. Of course, I also don't have to reboot my machine anymore because it hangs while processing images since I also moved from Vista 32-bit to Win 7 64-bit.



HTH, kind regards, Wim

[Rainer]

From your system description, I dont think that newer hardware will change much ...



One bottleneck might be the 32bit memory access ... the 32bit OS also limits you to

no more that 4GB RAM ... so even if you could upgrade to more RAM ... a 32bit windows

would not use it. Effectively, 32bit windowses don't use more than 3GB.



If you change to a Windows-7 64bit and if you also change to the 64bit version of LR,

this should speed up things a bit. (That also allows windows to use all 4GB).



Defragmentation of your disk might also help a little.

[miro]

It is shame. Your system has such powerful CPU but motherboard is the cheapest from the cheapest. Most LGA775 mobos has 4 dimm slots.



I have similar problem as you when I upgrade my camera to canon 50d, followed with PC upgrade to AMD Phenom II 955 8GB DDR3 ATI radeon5450.



In your case I should go for new system. I advise to avoid i5 25xx because they are very expensive and doesn’t offer higher performance to the similar or lower priced I7.

Here are my suggestion.



1. Ultimate performance – I7 9xx – the triple channel memory interface offers performance boost in Photoshop and Lightroom. As far as I understand Wim has similar system with a little bit older CPU.

2. Very High performance I7 8xx – It is socket 1156 ,dual channel architecture. Cheaper CPU motherboard and requires 2 or 4 DIMMs

3. Mainstream – I5 – 750 or 760 AMD Phenom II 9xx.



RAM 6 or 8GB



PS

1. There are lots of PC review sites. Personally I have used www.tomshardware.com and some local sites.

2. It is needless to mention that you need Windows 7 -64bits. I have chosen Win7 home premium OEM.

3. As already know in photography there are many good ways. This is my vision. There are meanings e.g.

[url="It is shame. Your system has such powerful CPU but motherboard is the cheapest from the cheapest. Most LGA775 mobos has 4 dimm slots. I have similar problem as you when I upgrade my camera to canon 50d, followed with PC upgrade to AMD Phenom II 955 8GB DDR3 ATI radeon5450. In your case I should go for new system. I advise to avoid i5 25xx because they are very expensive and doesn’t offer higher performance to the similar or lower priced I7. Here are my suggestion. 1. Ultimate performance – I7 9xx – the triple channel memory interface offers performance boost in Photoshop and Lightroom. As far as I understand Wim has similar system with a little bit older CPU. 2. Very High performance I7 8xx – It is socket 1156 ,dual channel architecture. Cheaper CPU motherboard and requires 2 or 4 DIMMs 3. Mainstream – I5 – 750 or 760 AMD Phenom II 9xx. Good for PS 1. There are lots of PC review sites. Personally I have used www.tomshardware.com and some local sites. 2. It is needless to mention that you need Windows 7 -64bits. I have chosen Win7 home premium OEM. 3. As already know in photography there are many good ways. This is my vision. There are meanings e.g. http://forum.photozone.de/index.php?/topic/613-sony-24-mp-aps-c-sensor-coming/page__st__20 4. "]Here[/url]



http://forum.photozone.de/index.php?/topic/613-sony-24-mp-aps-c-sensor-coming/page__st__20

4.

[Guest]

[quote name='Rainer' timestamp='1295479293' post='5669']

From your system description, I dont think that newer hardware will change much ...



One bottleneck might be the 32bit memory access ... the 32bit OS also limits you to

no more that 4GB RAM ... so even if you could upgrade to more RAM ... a 32bit windows

would not use it. Effectively, 32bit windowses don't use more than 3GB.



If you change to a Windows-7 64bit and if you also change to the 64bit version of LR,

this should speed up things a bit. (That also allows windows to use all 4GB).



Defragmentation of your disk might also help a little.

[/quote]

Thats an interesting point. So far I have heard that a 64bit system with only 4gb RAm is slower than a 32 bit system with the same amount of ram. Can anybody comment on this? is a 64bit system always faster than a 32 bit system if both run on the same hardware ?

[Guest]

[quote name='miro' timestamp='1295514298' post='5674']

In your case I should go for new system. I advise to avoid i5 25xx because they are very expensive and doesn’t offer higher performance to the similar or lower priced I7.

Here are my suggestion.





[/quote]

Thanks a lot for your help. I just found this test, which claims the i52400 and i5 2500 to be quite a bit faster than the i7 8xx and a tiny bit faster than the i7 9xx:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i5-2500-2400-2300_8.html

In Germany a very decent mb for LGA 1155 (Asus P8H67-m evo) is only about 110 Euros, while the i5 2500 is 190 Euros. Thats in total only 30 Euros more than a i5 760 system and a lot less than an i7 8 xx or i7 9xx system.

[popo]

[quote name='jenbenn' timestamp='1295542567' post='5686']

Thats an interesting point. So far I have heard that a 64bit system with only 4gb RAm is slower than a 32 bit system with the same amount of ram. Can anybody comment on this? is a 64bit system always faster than a 32 bit system if both run on the same hardware ?

[/quote]

A 64 bit system running 32 bit code could possibly be slightly slower than a 32 bit system running the same, as 64 bit systems can have higher overheads to shift those extra bits. In practice the difference will be so small I don't think it is worth worrying about.

[miro]

[quote name='jenbenn' timestamp='1295543015' post='5687']

Thanks a lot for your help. I just found this test, which claims the i52400 and i5 2500 to be quite a bit faster than the i7 8xx and a tiny bit faster than the i7 9xx:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i5-2500-2400-2300_8.html

In Germany a very decent mb for LGA 1155 (Asus P8H67-m evo) is only about 110 Euros, while the i5 2500 is 190 Euros. Thats in total only 30 Euros more than a i5 760 system and a lot less than an i7 8 xx or i7 9xx system.

[/quote]





Thanks for sharing. I'm really surprised how good is the new CPU architecture.

Sorry that I have forgotten to mention xbitlabs website on my previous poststs